


The Bet

by cordeliadelayne



Category: Primeval
Genre: Forfeits, Getting Together, Humour, M/M, Secrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-10
Updated: 2016-10-10
Packaged: 2018-08-18 14:22:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8165032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cordeliadelayne/pseuds/cordeliadelayne
Summary: There's a bet going around the ARC - if Abby gets Danny and Lester to go on a date she wins a pot of money. The forfeit, months of cleaning duty....Things don't go quite according to plan.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fredbassett](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fredbassett/gifts).



> Written for fredbassett, who gave the prompt “now about that parking space you mentioned, guv...”
> 
> Originally posted to Livejournal in 2014

“Danny Quinn is an abomination sent from above to drive me to drink.”

Jenny raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow and took a sip of coffee. “Good morning.”

“Yes, fine, good morning,” Lester replied, waving distractedly at her.

“Unless I got the time wrong, we were supposed to have started this meeting fifteen minutes ago, weren't we?”

Lester sat down at his desk and straightened his tie. They both knew she hadn't got the time wrong.

“Quinn, turned up at my house. My house!”

Jenny was curious, despite an earlier vow that she wasn't going to get involved.

“And?” she asked.

“He wanted to deliver this, personally.” He threw down a sheath of papers on to the table in front of Jenny, scattering the biscuits Lorraine had laid out on a plate for them all over the floor.

“It's a list of demands,” Lester growled.

Jenny picked the papers up and shook off the biscuit crumbs.

“Demands?”

“For his continued employment. The arrogant...”

Jenny sent a discrete text on her phone as Lester paced around the room and then turned her attention back to him.

“You don't have to hire him. I can make sure he doesn't go to the newspapers.”

“He'd never do that,” Lester replied quickly. “He's...” He trailed off as he realised that Jenny was trying very hard not to smile.

“Yes, James?” she asked.

Instead of answering her he leaned over and pressed a button on the intercom at the side of his desk.

“Lorraine, please postpone my meeting with Ms Lewis until tomorrow afternoon.”

There was a very pregnant pause. “Isn't she in there with you right now?”

“Not for much longer.”

Jenny coughed to cover her laughter and quickly left the room.

She could hardly believe it, but Abby's plan to get Danny and Lester together appeared to be working.

* * * * *

Jenny bit into a chocolate éclair and moaned. She'd been craving a sugar rush all day, ever since the Ankylosaurus had swished its tail and knocked her and Danny into the Thames.

“Don't suppose you've got another one of those tucked away, have you?” Danny asked.

Jenny considered Danny for a moment – damp hair, obscenely tight jeans and a checked shirt that would give Stephen’s fashion choices a run for their money.

“Don't say I never give you anything,” she said, lifting up the newspaper in front of her to reveal another éclair.

“I think I love you.”

Jenny waited until Danny had taken a large, messy bite of éclair before she replied. “Lester will be disappointed to hear that.”

As she'd expected, Danny's reaction was one of surprise and, she fancied, a healthy dose of something else entirely.

“Don't know what you mean,” Danny said. He started to wipe his mouth with his sleeve, until Jenny threw a napkin at him.

“Just an observation.” An observation she now had 30 quid riding on, mind you, but she wasn't about to let him know that.

Danny finished his éclair in one bite. “Lester doesn’t interest me.”

Jenny just smiled, until Danny shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

“I'm going home,” Danny said, and promptly got up to do just that.

Jenny waited until she was sure he was gone before ringing Abby. “You were right. He's more far gone than I realised...”

* * * * *

Abby was feeding Monty when Lester joined her. He didn’t say anything, just picked up an apple and fed it to their resident mammoth.

“Danny was down here earlier,” Abby said. “Monty's getting quite spoiled.”

“And what does Quinn know about mammoths?”

Abby shrugged. “What do you?”

Lester's eyes narrowed. “I know enough to make me dangerous.”

Abby turned her head so Lester wouldn't see her smile. “He usually comes in the evenings, too. About 7 o'clock.”

“Danny Quinn's whereabouts at any given time other than that for which he is being paid, is absolutely no concern of mine.”

And with that Lester spun on his heels and left the menagerie.

* * * * *

“How long do you think we can keep this up?”

“Tired already?”

“My stamina is _never_ in question.”

“Then...stop...talking and...get on with it.”

“So demanding. But don't worry, I have a plan.”

“The world is...oh...quite possibly, oh god, doomed.”

* * * * * *

The senior staff meeting was the highlight of absolutely nobody's week, but the team seemed even more downcast than usual, this morning. Only Danny still seemed to have a spring in his step, though Becker wasn't far off on the upbeat stakes.

“Hand it over,” Becker said.

Abby pulled a sheet of paper out of her jacket pocket and passed it along the table.

“What's that?” Danny asked.

“Nothing,” Abby said quickly, at the same time as Becker handed over the paper.

“I, Abigail Maitland, the undersigned,” Danny read aloud, “promise to clean the menagerie, the canteen and the armoury for three months if Danny and Lester have not begun a relationship before the start of the senior staff meeting of the 23rd.”

Abby put her head in her hands, whilst Connor tried to disappear under the table and Jenny hid behind a folder. Stephen and Cutter just looked amused.

“Clearly I haven't been giving you people enough work to do,” Lester declared, striding into the office and standing next to Danny's chair.

“I can explain...” Abby started.

“What was Becker's forfeit if we did get together?” Lester asked, far too casually.

“Nothing,” Becker replied, openly grinning now.

“What?” Abby asked. “But...”

“I sold my part of the wager,” Becker explained.

“Sold it to who?” Jenny asked, a very bad feeling settling in her stomach.

“Me,” Danny said.

“You?!” Abby gasped. “But, that means you knew...you knew what we were doing? And you...?”

Danny grinned. “But it has given me an idea. I'm not adverse to sexual favours...”

Cutter made very loud gagging sounds, that set Stephen to laughing so hard he was nearly doubled over.

Danny ignored them and looked up at Lester, batting his eyelashes. “Now about that parking space you mentioned, guv...”

“And what do I get for granting such a request?”

Danny grabbed Lester's tie and pulled the other man into a dirty kiss that heated up the room by several degrees. By the time he had finished, everyone was looking slightly flushed.

“I think a parking space can be arranged, Mr Quinn,” Lester said as he readjusted his tie. He moved over to his customary chair and sat down. “And I'm sure Lorraine will be delighted to rework the new cleaning schedule, seeing as Danny and I have never even contemplated a relationship until this moment.” He waited for anyone to object, but no one said a word. “Excellent. Now, who has today's agenda?”

Later, Lorraine would mark it down as the shortest staff meeting in the ARC's history. Everyone else remembered it as being the longest.


End file.
